


White Light//Black Water

by Looks_Clear (chrysalisdreams)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: !Kale Sam, Alternate Angel Lore (Supernatural), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baby gets hurt, Canon-Typical Violence, Car Accidents, Drowning, Episode Related, Episode: s08e12 As Time Goes By, Episode: s14e13 Lebanon, M/M, Minor Character Death, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, the Baozhu pearl wish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2020-09-30 21:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20453606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalisdreams/pseuds/Looks_Clear
Summary: Summary: Dean is drowning; Dean is dying. Over and over and over.In 2019, the Baozhu, a pearl that granted the desire of Dean’s heart, changed the timeline from a particular moment in 2003. Dean is hunting alone when events set in motion before that year catch up to him.Tagged MCD for temporary/ambiguous major character death. This is an exploration of the time paradox presented in Episode 300, the alternate timeline created, and the question of whether Dean's "heart's desire" was really as presented.





	1. Part 1//TIME'S RIVER

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to state up front that this work is probably a little pretentious. And there's less Destiel that the tag typically promises, and that there is no smut. The premise always wanted to be a long fic, but if I held out, there would be nothing at all. Part 1 is heavily inspired by a Joyce Carroll Oats novella, Black Water, that has wrecked me every time I've read it.
> 
> I bashed my head against the wall a lot while working on this. If you like it, let me know. <3 ~Cris

The black Chevy Impala hits the railing, plunges into water. Who would ever have thought the river here would be so deep, so cold, the current so fast? Steel sinks in water, the weight of driver and passenger negligible compared to so much metal, over 3,000 pounds of Detroit muscle car, and yet the river water is the greater element, rolling the Impala over before she hits bottom, upside-down. Black water rushes in through broken glass.

_ This is how I’m gonna die, _ Dean thinks.

_ Son of a bitch. _

.

.

.


	2. Chapter 2

The road is bad. It’s full of pits and pot holes, and Dean feels every one, every jolt shooting pain through the torn up meat of his abdomen. He presses his hands to his wound, steady pressure, and holds back his groaning. Sam, his kale-loving brother, is already near panic as he speeds over the bad road. Baby’s headlights stab through darkness, the night moonless and the country road so remote the headlights don’t reflect on any mile markers or signs. Sam’s glasses pick up some of the light. Enough that Dean can see the fear.

Dean’s been thinking the words for a while now. He doesn’t want to say them out loud, but he does. “Think we’re lost?” His voice sounds like broken rocks. Barely audible over the engine noise.

“Shortcut,” Sam manages to gasp out. “The highway's east. We’re going the right direction.” He takes his eyes off the road for a moment, takes a hand off the steering wheel to pick up that expensive cellular phone, lifts it up so he can see the screen. Puts it on the dash, a grimace on his face as he says, “Still no signal,” as if he can’t believe the betrayal of service. The cold, blue-white light of the cell phone fades and ends after thirty seconds.

Dean is bleeding out. His vision is starting to go white, all white, like the world running out of color, the night being swallowed up by nothingness. “Sober yet?” Dean jokes.

“Fuck you,” Sam answers. There is bitterness, but no heat, in the retort. His hands squeeze the wheel. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have cursed at you. I don’t want that to be the last thing I said to you if--”

Dean misses the kid Sam used to be. His obnoxious kid brother, always an egghead but with spark in him, not like the twitchy thirty-year-old nerd at the wheel. “I’m not dying today,” Dean says.

Up ahead is a bridge. Before it is a turn in the old river road, an unexpected bending, a sharp turn left with no sign to warn a driver at night, a driver unfamiliar with the road, a driver going too fast to make the correction.

The railing is -- nothing. A paper doily in a cake box has fewer holes. The railing is as old as the Impala, maybe, but not cared for the way Dean maintains his Baby. Baby goes through it like one of those circus animal tricks, the lion and a circle of crepe. When would an apex predator ever need to punch through tissue? The ringmaster cracks his whip. She leaps.

Engine roaring, Baby tears through the decrepit railing. It catches and trails down with her. She plunges into water, black water on a black night, carrying down two brothers who had, for more than a decade, been apart.

She sinks. She fills with water.

.

.

.


	3. Chapter 3

Daylight, on a bright afternoon. Dean’s in Baby’s back seat, whole and hale but tired after a successful hunt. With boots up, heels on top edge of the front bench seat, he’s laughing as he watches a TED-esque talk on YouTube. He can’t believe what a dufus his kid brother’s become. Kale?  _ Jesus Christ. _ What the fuck was kale, anyway?

Turns out kale is that green plasticky stuff that Biggerson’s puts on the side of the plate instead of parsley, he finds out from the waitress the next time he gets breakfast-for-dinner there. Come to think of it, Sam used to eat the parsley when they were kids. It was for freshening breath, their dad had said. Sam would chew the garnish and then breathe on Dean when John wasn’t paying attention.

Dean sticks to mints. But he also doesn’t mind tasting coffee in someone else’s mouth, when the opportunity arises.

There’s a guy in the next booth along the window, sitting with a cup of coffee, who keeps glancing up and meeting Dean's eyes, so Dean’s been turning the charm onto L’shawnda, the waitress, whenever she checks on him, which results in the enlightenment about kale. The guy looks white collar, like an accountant, not a cop or a Fed, but something about him makes Dean feel like fish are swimming in his belly. Dean’s more self-aware than the blockhead he pretends to be, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to do anything about the guy with the questioning blue eyes, nursing black coffee in the next booth.

He'll go back to his motel room alone, to spend half the night dredging unreliable internet news for another hunt. Sleep for the remainder of the night. Get coffee when the sun rises. Hit the road. Kill some monsters. Mostly, beheadings.

Get dinner at a roadside diner, if he’s lucky, at the Gas ‘n’ Sip, if he’s not. Go looking for monsters. Kill some monsters.

Rinse, repeat.

Dean might want something more in his life, but even contemplating what the heart desires can be a dangerous thing. You don’t pull at that thread to see what unravels. As desires go, he'll stick to pie and burgers and ganking monsters.

Problem is, sometimes the monsters hunt him.

Sometimes, they get claws in.

Dean is bleeding on Baby’s front seat. His blood is hot and liquid, but he can’t see it, it’s too dark inside the Impala, all that cold and liquid river rushing over the metal coffin he’s in.

_ Somebody help me _

He prays, because he still believes in God. If there are demons in daylight, if there’s a  _ Goddamn _ Knight of Hell then couldn’t there be a God and couldn’t He maybe make an exception  _ this once _ , if not for Dean, then maybe for Sam?

Sammy, who’d gotten out.

Become a lawyer, the way he said he would.

Sam, who got out out of the hunter world, so rusty he can’t hit make a head shot from five feet away. Sam, who had no time for family, but got sucked into this shitshow of Grandpappy Winchester anyway.

Dean would still die for his little brother.

He prays for somebody to save him, but he would go under the water any day if he had to, for family.

Dean is  _ going to die. _

White light in his head surrounds him, swallows him whole.

.

_ “ _ _ Cryin' won't help you prayin' won't do you no good _

_ Now cryin' won't help you prayin' won't do you no good” _

.

Listening to Zep on the radio, tapping to the rhythm of “When the Levee Breaks.” Flipping through the channels on a motel TV. Sam Winchester, on the local news. He’s giving a lecture at the university.

It’s a few miles from the highway, one of those lush campuses abutting a forest, river winding nearby, a place for classics majors. It’s a ways from the nearest luxury hotel, and Dean discovers Sam’s set up in a nice suite on campus.

He doesn’t surprise him in a dark room this time. Maybe that’s why there’s a hint of warmth, if not welcome, a flicker of a smile when Sam straightens his glasses. Dean offers himself a drink, and pours one for Sam. The room is stocked with top quality Scotch.

They have the usual argument, no real heat in it, the same one they have whenever Dean puts himself in Sam’s space. The one where once Sam’s had enough alcohol in him, he says, “You don’t have to save the world, Dean.”

This time, Dean doesn’t have time to answer, “What else am I good for?” because a random closet door flares with a spell and bursts open, decanting a man who turns out to be a time traveler. Henry Winchester, who disappeared when their father was a child. Henry, their grandfather -- being chased by a top shelf demon, something called a Knight of Hell.

.

.

.


	4. Chapter 4

  1. _“Dad’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in a few days.”_
  2. "Face it. Dad's dead. We're not going to find him. We're not going to find a body, or the monster that got him."

.

.

.

Sam misses the shot.

There’s a hand on Dean’s throat. Painted nails like claws. 

Dean shoots the demon in the face as she’s coming at him. He drops the gun and goes for the machete. She’s on him, sulfur breath hissing out from her carmine mouth. There’s nothing sexy about the demon's fingers at the waistline of his jeans. Punching her fingers into his belly. 

Her other hand is on his neck, choking him.

Dean is choking. 

On water. On blood. On water.

_ Does it matter? _

.

.

.


	5. Chapter 5

Abbadon doesn’t go down with the first shot. It destroys the back of her skull and exits her body, rending the etched bullet useless. Before she rips Dean open, his knife hacks through her neck, tissue and bone, through the sweet spot. Dean’s taken off a lot of heads, and he’s good at it.

Sam unloads the rest of his bullets into her body, each with their hastily carved demon traps, while Dean puts a couple of small caliber rounds into her brain. He lobs her severed head into a curse box.

They have to leave the rest of her, and Henry, on the floor of the empty barn. The nearest emergency room is at least fifteen minutes down the highway, if Dean were driving, and Dean can’t drive with holes punched into his belly.

“Get this in the trunk!” Dean tells Sam. His guts tell him yelling was a bad idea. He sees stars explode in his vision, just climbing into the car.

“Stay with me. Hey. Hey! Stay with me, Dean.” Sam, in the driver’s seat, is digging around for something.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dean speaks from his chest, from his throat. It still hurts. Can’t talk without the diaphragm moving.

“Calling 911,” Sam answers. “Oh, God. There’s no signal.”

_ Christ on a bike. He’s looking for the seatbelt. _

Sam gives up, turns the ignition, guns the engine and almost drives them into tree. Dean can’t help groaning at the hard brake and swerve.

Sam learned to drive in the Impala. She’s more than he can handle, now, but he shoots her out on the country road, pedal down, and Baby roars her 285 horses like she’d carry Dean out of Hell if she had to.

In the turning water, she’s gone silent. Her brilliant headlights sputter.

She’s filling with water, a flood.

Sam pulls himself across the roof of the upside-down car. He makes it to the back seat, tugs at the collar of Dean’s jacket, trying to get a secure hold, trying to pull Dean out of the front where he’s pressing against the windshield. Dean shoves him away.  _ Sam got out _ . Sam gets out of the Impala, able to kick the back door open a crack against the force of the river, eight pounds to a gallon of water and what does that work out to for the physics of escaping a submerged automobile?

What’s the answer in the form of a question?

_ I’ll take Family, for 300, Alex. _

There’s a shoe, rolling around in the water. Before the lights sputter out, Dean sees it’s a leather Oxford. Sam has lost a shoe.

After the headlights go out, a shoe hits Dean’s face.

The water is up to his chin. Up to his lips. It tastes like his blood and the things that have died in the river. He pushes himself up, higher into the pocket of air. The pain is so bad, his vision starts to go white, light brighter than midday sun in the Mojave, brighter than Baby's lights on a desert highway. A forest road. The streets of a Midwest city.

Shining on ocean waves. White as shells. White as a pearl.

Dean should have died a hundred times over. If not a ghoul in a graveyard, then a bad taco, or a stupid accident of wrong place wrong time.

Because he hasn't found  _ his _ place. Never will, now.

Unless this is his place. Full of white light.

His ears are ringing.

.

.

.


	6. Chapter 6

"I Wuv Hugs" his shirt says. His favorite shirt is TRANSFORMERS but Mom likes this one. Dean can dress himself. He can read his shirt.

"Daddy will be home soon," Mary says. "I'm making Winchester Surprise. Are you hungry, honey?"

"I'm thirsty," Dean says.

"Here, sweetheart. Have some water."

.

.

.

Baby’s filling with water, a flood. It's like a birth, maybe, in reverse. 

.

.

.

The white light is in his ears. It’s in his mouth. It burns his skin. He tastes it across his lips. He --

Baby’s headlights stab through the dark. The road is suddenly gone, ahead, and the Impala tears through a rusted arc of railing before her tires are spinning in air. “Shit!” Sam shouts. The headlights illuminate water; Dean can see the division between worlds, the beams refracted, for a beat.

One world is traded for another. In the upside-down world, Dean is alone. Sam got out.

Sam got out.

Sam went to Stanford, became a big time lawyer.

.

.

.

Dean parks in an easement between houses. There is nowhere else around Stanford to park his truck but the alley. It’s all permit parking, Hondas and Volkswagens lining the streets even if Dean disregards tow-away zones. He hops fences and crosses through yards until he gets to Sam’s dorm.

Sam doesn’t give him ten minutes. The fight is too recent, the wound of tearing free too fresh.

But the next day, Sam answers the fourth time Dean calls. “OK,” Sam says, before Dean finishes a word. Sam agrees to help him look for John. “Not until after finals. But I have an internship starting the first week of July, that’s a couple of weeks to track Dad down and that’s it, that’s all I can do.”

“He’s missing now, Sam. If some monster’s got ‘im, that’s not gonna wait until you’re done with school.”

“So you look for him. Maybe he’s fine, maybe he’ll turn up. If not, I’ll help you -- look.”

“For his body.”

Sam is silent, on the phone, for a beat. “Yeah.”

“OK,” Dean says.

In the last few days of June, Ellen reaches out to Dean. When the Winchester brothers arrive at the roadhouse, she sits them down with the hunter that found John’s Impala.

“No signs of struggle,” Garth says. He’s a weedy kid and overly sentimental. He offers reassurance as he slides over a cheap map marked with a quick circle. Then he slides over a journal, bound in leather, keys, and a cell phone. “I left the Impala right where it was, I figured you’d want to check out the scene for yourself, but these seemed too important to leave there.”

They retrieve the Chevy. Sam takes the news as mission over. The verbal fight that follows is shades of Sam’s fight with John. Dean gets so angry, he lets Sam walk away. Dean leaves Sam on a road, in the middle of nowhere, and Sam makes his way back to California without help or hindrance.

Dean sometimes wonders if Sam is aware that Dean checks up on him, over the years. There was a girl in Sam’s life briefly, Jessica, a sexy cheerleader type, but she didn’t wait for Sam when he was away helping Dean look for John Winchester, than summer. He’s not invited to his kid brother’s graduation, when it comes, but Dean is there, anyway.

.

.

.

Baby sinks into a place without light.

Dean sinks with his beloved Impala. He’s loved a few times in his life, fallen in love hard, even. He’s never cherished anyone except Baby.

It pisses him off, the way the river water is violating her. Water is filling her...

Fuck.

_ Fuck! _

Water is filling his lungs. He tried not to let it in. He resisted. He resisted as long as he could. He’s fighting, thrashing in slow motion. It feels like slow motion because only fish move fast in water. Only fish breath water. So heavy, the water could be iron chains.

Everything is dark. Then it all goes white.

Blinding pain.

Blinding light.

It was supposed to be a monster that got him.

Not water.

Not water.

Not fucking  _ drowning _ .

Dean doesn’t go peacefully. Dean Winchester doesn’t die  _ easy _ . The white light grips him and his ears are ringing. There is a sound so loud, he thinks his head will be crushed like a beer can.

He’s being torn apart. The pain is white fire. So cold. This must be Hell, then. Dean drowns in the fire, and then --

He inhales, and the air is cool and smells like river, but it is air. He sputters in surprise, but his lungs are clear. He doesn’t remember how he got out of the river.

He is standing near a river, but his clothes are dry, his lungs are clear, and as far as he can tell, he is not dead. Not in hell. Not in the river.

His hand goes to his shoulder, because something feels weird with the skin there. Pushing aside the collar of his shirt and the T-shirt beneath, he looks at the skin of his shoulder and arm, at the raised, florid burn scar there.

The mark is a handprint.

Dean’s voice is small in the dark night. “What the actual  _ fuck? _ ”

.


	7. Part 2//THE PEARL WISH

“The lore is pretty clear,” Sam says. “Destroy the pearl, it unwinds all of this. Everything goes back to the way it was.”

“As simple as that?” Dean asks.

Sam shrugs.

It’s smaller than something so powerful should be, something that can even change the fates of angels. It brought back Zachariah, in the round-about way of a timeline where another Dean had never stabbed Zachariah in the beautiful room, that other Dean who had never gone to Hell at the bad end of a crossroads deal, never become the Righteous Man of prophesy.

A little larger than a gumball, and sort of a dull white, the pearl doesn’t look like a treasure. Dean thinks, again, about a Steinbeck short story, the one about the fisherman and the fat pearl that brought misfortune. He picks up the Baozhu, this pearl that grants a heart’s desire. It’s cursed, in it’s own way, too. He holds it in his palm. Sets it down on the abused surface of the hardwood table. Sam has brought over a small mortar that they sometimes use for grinding spell ingredients. Dean picks the stone mortar up.

Fast and hard, he brings his hand up and back down, aiming at the pearl.

There is a loud cracking sound, a blinding flash of white light like a flash grenade. His hand gets hot and he flinches away. The pearl, which should be dust, rolls, then drops to the floor. Settles, unblemished. Although his hand still stings from the burn, Dean picks it up.

The Baozhu has been held in the mouth of a celestial dragon. They don’t realize that. Of course it does not break so easily. The pearl wish is the gift of a goddess. It doesn’t matter that the Winchesters don’t know her, don’t honor her. Nuwa has rolled the Baozhu in her mouth, considering what the oyster felt. As the grain of sand is in the center of a pearl, Dean’s wish is still in the center of this new reality that has begun to build, layer on layer, from the moment John Winchester left 2003.

The second flash of brilliant light comes not from the pearl, but from the angel striding through the bunker door. He’s blazing with grace, eyes glowing, and the shadow of his wings

_ his wings, every feather in place -- Dean should have noticed, in the restaurant, when Castiel appeared with Zachariah _

the shadow of his perfect wings fills the wall behind him. 

“Cas?” Dean asks, an upturn of hope in his question. With the timeline changing, Cas would not have the scars from Metatron’s spell that cast the angels out of heaven. Dean feels something at that thought. Something... that he might want to be true.

It’s different, for Sam.

“It’s Castiel,” Sam says with a certain finality. Sam is speaking quickly, addressing the angel earnestly. “Castiel. You don’t remember us, because the timeline has changed for you. But we’re -- we’re allies. Friends.” Sam is backing up as he speaks. He’s moving toward a cabinet where they keep holy oil.

Mary turns and runs. There’s an angel blade she left in the next room.

With a sound like a banner catching the wind, the angel flies. He’s gone after Mary.

“Mom!” Dean yells, and he sprints after them both. In the hallway, he finds Castiel, alone. Castiel looks utterly baffled. He has one hand clenched as if he had been holding something.

“She… vanished.”

Dean doesn’t accept it. It’s not too late, he thinks. Not too late. There has to be a way to make it right. He didn’t want this. His “heart’s desire” was supposed to be: Michael, out of his head. Should have known it was too good to be true, to fix his screw-up with a wish.

“Cas,” Dean starts.

The angel stares at him, and it’s as if cylinders are clicking in place behind his sharp blue eyes. “The alteration you caused. The changes are still coming into effect.” His question crackles. “_ What did you do? _”

The pearl is still enclosed in Dean’s hand. He can’t break it, but maybe a full-powered angel can. He extends his hand to Castiel, palm open.

.

.

.

Dean is seeing things.

There is a… woman? A woman-shaped something. She is floating in his vision, hard to look at. The scene is too bright, whiteness bleaching out every other detail even sound but this woman who is looking at him as if she _ sees _him, sees inside him in places he’s always kept hidden. 

The currents of the river move the fabric of her dress around her so that she seems encircled in undulating silk ribbons. But Dean can’t feel the water anymore, but he can hear it roaring, all white noise. He doesn’t seem to be in the river, but he is weightless, buoyant. Surrounded by cold nothingness, when he reaches around himself, grasp searching for something that could be a weapon. 

She raises her hand, and between her fingers is a spherical object about an inch across. She looks at Dean as if she can see into his soul. Her eyes glitter with the night sky inside them.

Her other hand reaches out and curls around his upper arm, and her touch burns without heat but Dean can’t even flinch away, let alone escape. He is being pulled, pulled, pulled along --

His senses come back in a rush, an overwhelming wave of temperature, sound, and light. He has been pulled out of the river. Dean is coughing out foul water but he’s aware enough to realize he can’t feel his gut wound. He is aware enough, though it takes him almost a full minute, to recognize the man crouched over him is the dark-haired guy from Biggerson’s a few days ago. The trench coat, suit, and tie help Dean place him, but Dean feels as though his recognition is more than that.

“I had hoped,” the man says, in a deep and gravely voice, “you would hear my voice. I could have done more with your consent.” Before Dean can react, the man presses the tips of two fingers against Dean’s temple. “I am sorry I didn’t know about the demon sooner. It’s better if you forget that, too.”

.

.

.

Dean is standing near a river. His shoulder is stinging. The skin there is red and raised in the mark of a hand, but as Dean watches, it fades, as if it never happened.


	8. Part 3//A SNAGGED THREAD

Castiel could smite the one he fights, but he doesn’t. Instead, he fights with fists, grapples with the human. Stalling, while he calculates facts. His mind slips back a minute, back to the recognition and puzzlement in the man’s face.

"You _ know _ us," the man says. No fear. No awe. 

Castiel squints. "I don't know you," he retorts. He attacks -- Winchester, Zachariah had called the man. 

There is nothing surprising about Castiel overpowering him with a few hits. What is surprising is that it takes that long. Long enough for the other Winchester to draw and activate a sigil. The sigil is a thing of Heaven. Like the angel blade, it something that makes no sense to be here. The impossibility snags on Castiel’s understanding for the briefest of moments, as the sigil banishes the angel to heaven.

.

.

.

Castiel fights. Hand to his opponent’s forehead, he smites…

...burning the demon out of the body it has been possessing. The woman is long dead, in heaven all the months that this demon has been tracking Dean Winchester. The demon is one of the few loose on the earth, possibly from having escaped after being summoned for a dark ritual.

The year is 2007. Heaven still has big plans for the Winchesters in 2007, though by 2019 those plans will have fizzled.

Castiel left his vessel, circa 2019, in 2019. James Novak of 2003 was slower to consent, not less devout than he would be in later years, but less easy about giving up his individualism. Nevertheless, he heard Castiel’s voice and said yes.

Time, for humans, has the constraints of matter and mortality. Heaven does not run in tandem with earth, and yet, _ something had changed _ , crucial enough to have affected Heaven in a way the angels felt but _ could not explain. _

Castiel still has a mission.

Zachariah’s order to kill the Winchester brothers is not his mission. His mission has always been to take necessary measures to restore order.

.

.

.

Dean hasn’t been finding hunts; hunts have been finding him. The demon picked up Dean’s trail after the ghost case in Missouri. Castiel would have stepped in on that hunt, too, if Rufus Turner had not turned up. The older, more experienced hunter was the back-up Dean needed to destroy that ghost’s earthly anchor, though the hunters parted ways once the case was done.

Hunters seem to insist on solitary ways, Castiel has come to understand, even though hunting is a dangerous pursuit for one human alone. He does not reveal himself to Dean unnecessarily. When necessary, he removes Dean’s memory of their encounter. It is a principle of Castiel’s existence to protect humanity, though not specific humans, but protecting Dean specifically is expedient. Castiel still has the mission that sent him to earth with Zachariah, as well as the questions brought up by that first encounter with the Winchesters. 

At least once a year, Dean makes his way to the west coast and looks in on his brother. Since their last argument, Sam doesn’t want to see his brother. In much the same way that Castiel watches over Dean, Dean watches over Sam: observing at a distance, unseen.

.

.

.

_ You know us. _

It doesn’t make sense. 

He is an angel. He is a soldier. He is obedient, good at following instructions, good at following orders… but he has always sought to understand, to see the truth. He takes a high view of the battlefield, not limited to the fight in front of him. It makes him a better soldier, a better leader, too, when he has been called to lead.

He doesn’t need new orders. He returns to Lebanon, Kansas, to find the Winchesters. He finds them in a place outside of the small town in the hills, in a structure underground that, to his senses, faintly glows with broken wards.

When he leaves the bunker, he is in possession of an of apostasy, if he accepts the story Dean Winchester has told him about the pearl. Castiel can feel the strangeness of it, this thing not of his heaven or his God. It is smooth, but it snags at his very existence, the Baozhu an impossible thing that nevertheless exists.

.

.

.

Castiel is in a Biggerson’s, with a cup of coffee for company. The year is 2013, and he has been watching Dean Winchester for ten years. A decade on earth is nothing to an angel, and Heaven hasn’t given much attention to Castiel in the millennia he has existed, anyway, his service and leadership in the garrison taken for granted. Timeline disturbance was Zachariah’s pet peeve. Heaven doesn’t care overmuch about earth and isn’t in any rush to resolve the problem.

Castiel still has his mission, but after ten years in an earthly vessel, his mission is less defined than it once was. Watching Dean Winchester has become integral to his mission. Dean Winchester is the true vessel of Michael. The archangels once thought John would be the one to break the first seal of the Apocalypse, but then he vanished, somehow hidden from the eyes of heaven. So, Castiel watches Dean Winchester.

Dean Winchester eats, sleeps, reads paperback novels, and flirts with waitresses. He hunts vampires, werewolves, and Wendigo. He works on his car and listens to the same 1,412 songs with little variation. He sings in the shower, and he does all of the kinds of things humans do when they think they are alone, with no one watching.

Castiel had been trying to decide how to talk to Dean. Which was why he is in this diner, sitting with a cup of black coffee, listening to Dean charm the restaurant staff. He makes eye contact with Dean several times.

Dean is about to leave, and Castiel still hasn’t come to a decision.

Sauntering, Dean starts toward the exit and then doubles back after a few steps. He slides into the seat opposite Castiel, leans in with an elbow on the table, props his chin on his hand, makes direct eye contact with Castiel and smiles expectantly. “How’s that coffee?” Dean asks.

Castiel doesn’t have a reply ready. He rarely speaks to anyone.

While Castiel says nothing, Dean’s bright smile softens, but doesn’t fade. He uses the same leading tone Castiel has heard him use with waitstaff, when he then says, “I’m Dean.”

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says.

Dean is waiting.

_ My name is Castiel. I’m an angel of The Lord. _ It’s on Castiel’s lips, but he stops himself before saying it. He should not be talking to Dean. It is unlikely that they would have met this way, in the timeline before it changed.

“Today’s my birthday, by the way,” Dean offers to break the silence. “I think I could do something to celebrate. What do you think?”

Castiel will have to erase Dean’s memory of the meeting. But not here, where the action could draw attention. “We will go outside,” Castiel says, with full authority. “Behind the restaurant.”

Dean’s eyebrows shoot up. “Like that, huh?” But he follows when Castiel leads them outside.

When they are out of sight of others, Castiel touches his fingertips to Dean’s forehead. He makes Dean forget.

Again.

He has done this before because Dean has done this before, noticed Castiel and approached him.

He has done this before because Dean is sometimes reckless or in a mood that seems, to Castiel, self-destructive. He gets into situations where someone should be with him watching his back. Where Dean needs to know that there is someone fighting at his side. Where Dean needs to know it matters that he makes it through the fight. 

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	9. Chapter 9

Castiel watches Dean Winchester, more closely than he has watched a human before. He used to have a reason for watching over Dean. Now Dean is the reason, reason enough.

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	10. Chapter 10

Castiel has a mission, it is why he traveled back in time, and falling in love with a human is not an acceptable part of it. Falling in love with Dean, who can’t exist as he is. This Dean, who will be erased when time is put right. This Dean, who because of Castiel, never remembers that Castiel is always with him, fighting beside him, sharing a moment and sometimes more. 

In need of guidance, Castiel returns to heaven, leaving his vessel, Jimmy Novak, behind. 

He finds Mary Winchester’s heaven, though he doesn’t enter. Her door shows the dates of her life, 1954 to 1983, seemingly as it should be, but Castiel saw Mary in 2019. Her door should be showing a second date line, open ended, beginning some time after 1983.

Nearby in the same corridor is another door: 

> Dean Winchester January 24, 1979 -- January 30, 2013.

Except that Dean Winchester was alive in 2019. He should not be in heaven. Dean can’t be alive in 2019 and dead in 2013.

Castiel doubts. He hesitates.

He makes up his mind.

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Like a dragon, serpentine, time twists and coils and loops over itself.

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Sinking in a black river, Dean prays. Castiel hears him. Castiel hears him, and he goes to him, but the angel is in his true form, and Dean can’t hear his voice, it seems. 

When Castiel returns in his vessel, he surprises a reaper waiting by the river to lead Dean’s soul away. Castiel flies to Dean and hauls Dean out of the river, powered-up grace moving him through the black water barely touched by the molecules. He and Dean come up dry. He expels the water from Dean’s lungs, heals the injuries, and brings Dean back to life before the reaper can even think to protest. She leaves in confusion.

Castiel waits until Dean sputters back to consciousness before moving to erase Dean’s memory. “I’m sorry I didn’t know about the demon sooner. It’s better if you forget that, too.”

Dean pulls back, away from Castiel’s touch, and grabs Castiel’s wrist. “Wait!” He scuttles back further. “Wait.” He stares. “Who are you?” A more important concern flashes across his face. “Sam. My brother. Is Sam OK? Where is he?”

“Sam is unharmed. He is walking up the road.”

“The fuck?” Dean questions. He checks himself for non-existent wounds. He gets to his feet. “We were in an accident. My car!”

“Dean,” Castiel says, to get his attention back.

“No.” Dean is braced to fight.

“_ Dean, _listen,” Castiel starts.

“Look, buddy, I don’t know you, and I don’t know what’s going on --”

Castiel hates the fear and confusion behind Dean’s aggression. He wants to tell Dean everything. He wants to give Dean answers. There is a consequence for everything, and Castiel has already taken questionable action, in preventing Dean’s death.

“If I can show you,” Castiel interrupts, “that your brother is fine, will you listen?” 

.

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Sam is sitting in an armchair in his room at the university where he is giving a guest lecture. An unopened book rests on the table beside him. He doesn’t remember sitting down; he doesn’t remember selecting that book from the shelf. He doesn’t recall a vision, this time, but the feeling is similar, as if he has been somewhere and back and can’t remember it.

He shivers, because it hasn’t happened in years. The lifestyle changes -- meditation, exercise, and his strict diet, his restriction of personal connections -- gave him control over those mental episodes that made him hallucinate future events, as if he were having psychic visions.

He checks the time, the date, and finds that he has lost days. He doesn’t wait, but immediately books a trip home.

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Dean is in a 24-hour diner beside the highway. Sam is not. Once he saw that Dean was miraculously safe and alive, Sam had drawn that old hard line between them again, unwilling to have anything to do with hunting. With Dean. The time traveler did his instant-relocation thing and took Sam back to the university. Dean walked the half mile or so to the highway, and the diner was at the next exit.

“So you’re from the future,” Dean reiterates. Between them, the pearl sits on a nest of crumpled paper napkins so that it won’t roll off the table. Dean hasn’t touched it since Castiel first set it down.

“No. I am from 2019, but not your future,” Castiel states. “One I’m not certain that I can go back to, now.”

“Because you changed stuff. Sam and I talked about this with Henry. With our grandfather. What’s going to happen in six years, then, when it catches up to when you left? Time paradox? You go poof?”

“I don’t know. It is more likely that particular future will cease to exist.”

“If it was your mission to fix time, why did you change anything?”

“I made a decision to fix something that had gone wrong with the wrong timeline. I know it doesn’t make sense to you.”

Dean puts his hands flat on the table, framing the pearl. “No, it doesn’t.” There is a mountain of information Castiel isn’t telling Dean. “Sam should be here. He gets his head around time travel stuff better than I can. Last week, I didn’t believe time travel was even real.” 

He considers, reviewing the events of the last few days. “Maybe it’s better that he isn’t. Sam’s not a hunter anymore. He made his choice. He shouldn’t have to be. Me and Henry could have taken out Abbadon without Sam being involved.” He looks up, looks into Castiel’s intensely blue eyes. “I _ got _ the demon bitch, right? _ I _ did.”

“I should have helped.”

“I noticed you following me, a week back,” Dean says. “If you had, maybe my car wouldn’t have ended up sunk. Any chance you can Yoda my car out of the swamp?”

Castiel frowns. “If you mean transport it from the river, then yes, I can get the car out.”

Relief is a weight sliding off Dean’s shoulders. He reaches for his coffee mug for the first time since the waitress filled it. The coffee has cooled off, and he grimaces at the lukewarm sourness.

“Seems like a bad idea,” he says, contemplating the pearl. “Wishing for things to be different than they are.” He shakes his head. “So this thing is a monkey’s paw, you end up using the last wish to undo what the first wish caused. OK. So, you’re saying that since future-me is the one that made the wish, my soul might be connected to the wish. If future-me couldn’t break the pearl, why would I be able to?” He drums a thumb against the table top. “He said you were different in the original timeline, too.” He looks up again, studies Castiel’s face. “What if this you is the better one? How do we know the original timeline isn’t the one where the Nazis won World War Two?”

“The Nazis didn’t... win…” Castiel begins, but he is stalling. Dean recognizes the conflict he sees run through Castiel’s expression, a struggle between convictions, unsure which way is right. Dean used to feel that all the time, having to choose between supporting Sam and obeying their father. He hasn’t felt that way in a long time. “We’ll both exist as we were meant to be,” Castiel says, finally, “when the timeline is put right.” His expression has hardened, but there is a flicker of doubt, still, in his eyes.

Dean takes another swig of the terrible coffee. He looks right into Castiel’s eyes and says, “No.” He slides out of the booth.

“Dean. I will compel you, if I have to.”

The tone of Castiel’s voice sends a chill right down Dean’s spine, but he grins as if unaffected. He drops the grin so there is no misunderstanding, his expression serious when he says, “I don’t think you will.” 

It’s reckless, but it will prove his point, so Dean picks up the pearl. 

Dean closes his fingers around the pearl, closes his eyes. _ It ain’t the greatest life, or the most important life, but it’s my life, _ he asserts silently. _ Every day of it is my life, my choice. _ He sets the pearl down. To Castiel, he says, as he turns to walk out of the diner, “I’ll let you pay for the coffee. My wallet’s still in the car.” He leaves.

The dramatic exit is excessive, but Dean’s thoughts have gotten heavy, and he needs to walk them off. He doesn’t have to wonder anymore what happened to his dad, since John Winchester will be waiting for him in six years. His dad being absent isn’t anything new.

Dean’s not looking forward to explaining the lost time to John, but if Dean’s honest with himself, he’ll admit that being his own man, without having to report in, has been good. He’d made peace with John Winchester going out the way hunters go, thinking he’d come to the same end.

He has regrets, dozens of them, but none of them heavy enough to move the world. He’s lonely enough some nights to contemplate whether the kind of love that happens in movies, the forever kind, could be a real thing. It’s rare, but he’s met hunters who’ve paired or grouped romantically and made it work.

There is one thing, one thing he can imagine any version of himself might wish for: to know he’s in the place where he belongs. Right now, to Dean, where he is seems as good a place as any.

He stops for the moment, expecting that Castiel will catch up to him soon, assuming he still plans to make good on rescuing the Impala. Dean looks up at the stars. The headlights of cars passing on the highway cast a blinding light, messing with Dean’s night vision.

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There is light, brilliant and blinding, and the strong grasp of a hand on his bicep. Dean can feel fingers burn into his skin. The water all around him is frigid, but the grip is white hot. He can’t breath but he is being pulled up, up, out of the depths and darkness.

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The angel opens his hand and offers the pearl there to Dean. "You gave this to me. Other you. From a future that has changed."

"What is it?"

"It's called the Baozhu. An artifact that grants the wish of the one who holds it."

"Any wish?"

"The holder's heart's desire."

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The year is 2019. Knowing it’s what they have to do to set the timeline right, to save their mother and the family they built and everything they have ever done, Sam gets ready to smash the pearl. He trusts the lore: destroy the pearl, and the wish unwinds.

For a moment, he pauses to wonder that it would have changed so much because of their father being taken out of the past. Hunting with Dean, killing Azazel, finding the Colt that ended up opening the Hell gate in Wyoming. Stopping the Apocalypse. _ Causing _ the Apocalypse. He only follows that thread of thought for a moment.

He brings the mortar down on the pearl, intending to shatter it into dust.

...//...


End file.
